Hello again Science Fans, and welcome to the Year of the Rabbit!

The weather has been on everyone’s mind over the past month. The last time the Bay Area received this much rain in a 3 week period, Abraham Lincoln was President! Some areas were hit worse than others, of course. This all started the day after I left for Europe, and stopped when I returned. Strictly a coincidence, I assure you.

Most of us would recognize that there is a correlation between climate change and all the extreme weather events occurring around the world. For the past four years, 

Hello Rainy Science Fans,

There are two items that really jump to the front of what I have been thinking as I start to write this missive today. (A day early so that I can remind you about the first one!)

Sunday morning 12.11.22 marked the return of Orion (not Noelle and Alex’s son!) to earth completing the Artemis I mission around the Moon. I was 

Greetings fellow Science Fans! We trust you have had enough to eat this Thanksgiving weekend and are ready for some science! Well, we have that, and a little more for you.

Start with the nuts!

As I was growing up, one of the highlights of the holidays for me was eating roasted chestnuts. My father would talk about buying bags of them from street vendors in Vienna where he grew up, using them to keep his hands warm (in addition to eating them). I haven’t had them in quite a while, but this Thanksgiving I decided to buy a few and roast them.

Hardly anyone I know has tasted a

Hello again Science Fans!

It has been a very busy few weeks, with lots of news on many scientific fronts, so let’s get to it.

Health

I remember all too well late August and early September, 2000. I was returning from a road trip and spent a night in Pensacola, FL. I went to dinner at a restaurant early in the evening. One of the staff came in behind me carrying a small bag which I would later overhear her say was full of medicine her doctor had given her to counter the infection she had. She coughed

Hello again Science Fans!

Before I moved to the Bay Area, I lived in South Florida. As they do everywhere, people there talked about the weather and how it was always too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry, but never “normal”. While a sample of one doesn’t prove anything, our weather lately certainly hasn’t been “normal” what with a record-breaking heat wave, followed by an earlier-than-usual winter storm, followed by more heat.

One of the biggest influences on our local weather is fog. But even that seems to be changing, and the fallout could

Hello again Science Fans!

Almost a month ago, July 24th to be exact, was the last SciSchmooze I wrote. David

Hello again Science fans!

Before we go back in cosmic time today, I want to tell you about a more recent find (“recent” being relative, of c

Hello again fans of Science and Reason.

Particularly if the later is part of your DNA, then your head is probably spinning this week following two decisions by the US Supreme Court, one on guns, the other on abortion. We can’t ignore the elephant and blithly go on talking about events in the science community this week without addressing these but we’ll add some science to the debates.

For a historical perspective on the Court’s decision to remove a constitutional right from the American people (the first time that has happened, and one considered a fundamental right by most liberal democracies in the world) I’ll provide a link to 

Hello again Science Fans!

We’re in for a week of summer-like weather. While this isn’t unusual for the Bay Area, other parts of the country and world are experiencing record heat and other oddities. the Denver area was in the 80s one day this past week, followed by snow the next that broke numerous tree branches. In Spain,